1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to communication satellites. More particularly, the present invention relates to a satellite load balancing system and method which maximize the regional system capacity for a multiplicity of satellites and users.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, telecommunication satellites have generally been positioned in a particular geostationary orbit to serve a fixed geographic area. More recently, medium-earth-orbit communication satellite systems and low-earth-orbit communication satellite systems have been proposed for global telecommunication. Such lower altitude satellite configurations permit the communication satellites to service different geographical regions over time since the satellites would not be essentially fixed over a geographical point of the earth. The geographical regions to which communication satellite systems provide communication transmissions are designated as service regions.
Moreover, a lower altitude communication satellite configuration may be capable of two or more of its communication satellites supporting the same service region. The degree of communication satellite depends on its current position relative to the service region. The overall lower altitude communication satellite regional system capacity varies with time because of the satellite motion, and also with the geographic subscriber distribution.
Consequently, the lower altitude communication satellite configuration is not adequately described with the traditional communication satellite capacity definition. More particularly, the traditional communication satellite capacity definition does not focus on the level of service that an entire system of satellites can provide to a given service region.
Therefore, it is an objective of the present invention to determine a set of communication satellite assignments relative to different portions of the service region that achieves an optimum communication satellite system capacity for that region.